Today’s photos are completely random. I was at home a few weeks ago and I was getting bored, so I decided that it would be interesting to shoot some long exposures. When I turned off the lights in my room I noticed the glow coming from my PC. It was a kind of creepy glow, and it seemed like an interesting thing to shoot. There isn’t much more to say about it, except that I was purely intrigued by the deep blue coming from my LED fan.

Another LED lit photograph is the one below the PC photo.I shot this one using a single yellow LED that is attached to my keychain. It’s only water in that cup. This was during the heatwave so I was drinking a lot of water, and that remote controlled my fan which saved me from burning alive through the hot Mira Mesa days and nights.

Two project ideas I’m working on, which you will see photographs of when these projects go live:
1. Daylight hour long-exposures
2. San Diego @ Night

People love to ramble on about which stroke in swimming is the hardest. You will hear of the pain that comes from the high energy stroke that is freestyle, how hard it is to breath while swimming this stroke, and the legs that cramp from the constant kicking. In breaststroke you hear all the complaints about the problems with kicking and the difficulty in finding a solid efficient rhythm. When people get to butterfly, all you will hear are the moans about how hard it is. “I can’t pull hard enough”, “It hurts my shoulders”, or “I can’t find my rhythm”. Sure I suppose these are all valid complaints, but swimming is all about swimming. Bringing together all your muscles to work all at once is something that does require a lot of coordination, but all it takes is a little practice.

When I taught private lessons that is one thing I could not stress enough to the eager parents who wanted their children to swim. The more often they swim, I told them, the more they will remember the next time they come in. Someone who swims once a week is likely to forget everything that they learned, so when I have to teach them again I’m starting over again. If someone swam with me 3 times a week, I spend 1 day re-teaching what they forgot from last week, and the next 2 days I can teach them new things.

Well, back to the photo. Here this girl is beginning her backstroke race. Unlike all other strokes, this one is swum on your back. I would assume that’s quite obvious by the name, but just in case. Many people have difficulty with backstroke, partly due to the fact that you don’t see where you are swimming. This becomes more apparent at outdoor pools where all you have is sky to look at. Without reference, swimmers tend to stray from the center of their lane like a drunk driver in a rainstorm dodging bullets. It’s pretty ugly. More often than not I have struck my hand on a lane line before correcting my stroke. After many bruised and bleeding hands I learned two valuable lessons from my coach.

1. Find a frame of reference. This can be a pole, a tree, or anything stationary.

2. Keep your head straight. This is important. Although you MUST rotate your shoulders in order to swim backstroke correctly, you do not want your head to move at all.

Well I could only think of 2 lessons, but backstroke is a difficult stroke. In fact, swimming in general is difficult for anybody to master, so don’t be discouraged when you can’t break a 20 in the 50 free. As with anything in life, practice will be the thing that makes the difference. Well, that and a good coach.

-Jonathan Stember
Private Instructor

Well I was cruising around flickr when I realized something stupidly simple. Every time it rains we all rush out and go view the plants and flowers in their wet, dewy glory. Instead of waiting for the rain, carry a spray bottle with water in it! Instant rain, just add water. Inspiration came from this image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/viamoi/3373434879/